Known and unknown Christmas songs are interspersed with music by, among others, Bach, Reger and Kurt Noack, as well as the beloved Koppången. The performers are the soprano Sofie Asplund, the baritone Jeremy Carpenter, the pianist Bengt Forsberg and the organist Mats G. Eriksson on the organ of Allhelgonakyrkan.

As in previous years, our host Pär Trehörning contributes to the Christmas atmosphere. Olle Persson has been a fixture in our Christmas concerts for several years, but the other soloists have changed. We can also experience Sofie Asplund as Zerbinetta in Ariadne on Naxos at the Opera this autumn.

And there will be sing-alongs!

Artists

Sofie Asplund, soprano, born in Åland, graduated from the Academy of Opera in Stockholm in the spring of 2013. She was early connected to the Gothenburg Opera, where she made her acclaimed debut as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, followed by the roles of Gretel in Hansel and Gretel and Gilda in Rigoletto. In 2018, Sofie sang her first Zerbinetta in Ariadne on Naxos at the Gothenburg Opera, a role for which she received fantastic reviews and was nominated for the 2018 Opera Prize by the magazine Opera.

During this August, Sofie Asplund sang Arianna in Vivaldi’s Il Giustino at the Drottningholm Palace Theatre, which was a highly acclaimed performance. Recently Sofie was equally celebrated in the role of Zerbinetta, this time at the Royal Opera in Stockholm. “A pyrotechnic-orgasmic exclamation point in pink sequins”, writes Sofia Nyblom in her review in DN. Another Strauss opera awaits in the spring of 2023: Die schweigsame Frau at the Gothenburg Opera where Sofie appears as Aminta, which is followed by the role of Musetta in La Bohème on the same stage.

Sofie often appears in concert contexts and her repertoire includes works such as Brahms’s and Mozart’s Requiems, as well as Mozart’s Coronation Mass, Exsultate Jubilate and C Minor Mass. She also sang Bach’s Magnificat, St. John’s Passion and St. Matthew’s Passion, The Creation by Haydn, Pergolesi’s and Poulenc’s Stabat Mater, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Lars-Erik Larsson’s God in disguise and Britten’s Les Illuminations.

In 2018, Sofie Asplund was awarded the Sten A Olsson major cultural scholarship and was also named the winner of the new, national singing competition Schymberg Award. She has been nominated several times for the Swedish Soloist prize and received the 2015 Rosenborg-Gehrman scholarship. In 2013, she was named holder of both the Anders Wall and Birgit Nilsson scholarships and also received scholarships from, among others, the Royal Academy of Music and the Friends of Drottningholm Theatre.

The 2022 Christmas concert will be Sofie Asplund’s first performance in Allhelgonakyrkan.